Technology is on the verge of fundamentally reshaping the
education system. In particular, the technology to deliver
full-length courses online is rapidly becoming a reality.
The creation and delivery of courses over the Web will be
the driving force for educational change in the 21st
century.

The computer will allow the creation
of “learn by doing” courses designed by the best
and the brightest experts in any given field. Quality
universities will put their names on these courses, and
companies will create them, guaranteeing employment to those
who pass them. This will create tremendous change for
everyone involved in the education system.

New role for teachers

The
teaching of traditional academic subjects, first in high
school and later in elementary school, will be increasingly
done via online courses. Eventually school libraries will
contain hundreds of these courses. Teachers will be left to
provide things that technology cannot: personal one-on-one
tutoring; teaching kids how to work in a group to accomplish
something; and teaching crucial interpersonal relationship
skills.

Initially teachers may feel
disenfranchised by this. But an important opportunity will
emerge for teaching social skills that students desperately
need, and teachers will understand they need to be the ones
to fill this role. Today there is a push to measure teachers
by their students’ test scores. Tomorrow, teachers
will be judged by more meaningful measures as we begin to
value them for their human qualities.

Not only will teachers act much
more as social workers or guidance counsellors in the
future, they will also lead courses that explicitly focus on
developing social and interpersonal skills. In many ways
these courses will resemble the kinds of programmes provided
by Outward Bound. The teacher will be an advisor to the
team, or a guide on an expedition. Right now teachers are
authority figures. Once teachers move out of that role, they
will eliminate a roadblock that prevents them from
connecting with the students who need the most guidance.

Changes in primary education

One of the biggest problems we have in elementary
school is the amount of time kids are forced to sit still.
Sitting still is so hard, and it’s the last thing
young children want to do. I’d rather see kids
spending more time playing than doing academics. While I
think there is a valuable lesson in teaching a
seven-year-old to sit down and focus on a task, that task
shouldn’t be doing 1,400 multiplication tables.

Elementary school should be simply about reading,
writing and arithmetic, about acquiring good work habits,
and perhaps most importantly, about instilling a love of
learning in each child. A lot of

FUTURE PERSPECTIVE - A Vision of Education for the 21st Century

Posted by :EdMo

Technology is on the verge of fundamentally reshaping the education system. In particular,
the technology to deliver full-length courses online is rapidly becoming a reality. The creation and
delivery of courses over the Web will be the driving force for educational change in the 21st
century.

The computer will allow the creation of “learn by doing” courses
designed by the best and the brightest experts in any given field. Quality universities will put
their names on these courses, and companies will create them, guaranteeing employment to those who
pass them. This will create tremendous change for everyone involved in the education system.

New role for teachers

The teaching of traditional academic
subjects, first in high school and later in elementary school, will be increasingly done via online
courses. Eventually school libraries will contain hundreds of these courses. Teachers will be left
to provide things that technology cannot: personal one-on-one tutoring; teaching kids how to work in
a group to accomplish something; and teaching crucial interpersonal relationship skills.

Initially teachers may feel disenfranchised by this. But an important opportunity will emerge for
teaching social skills that students desperately need, and teachers will understand they need to be
the ones to fill this role. Today there is a push to measure teachers by their students’ test
scores. Tomorrow, teachers will be judged by more meaningful measures as we begin to value them for
their human qualities.

Not only will
teachers act much more as social workers or guidance counsellors in the future, they will also lead
courses that explicitly focus on developing social and interpersonal skills. In many ways these
courses will resemble the kinds of programmes provided by Outward Bound. The teacher will be an
advisor to the team, or a guide on an expedition. Right now teachers are authority figures. Once
teachers move out of that role, they will eliminate a roadblock that prevents them from connecting
with the students who need the most guidance.

Changes in primary
education

One of the biggest problems we have in elementary school is the
amount of time kids are forced to sit still. Sitting still is so hard, and it’s the last thing
young children want to do. I’d rather see kids spending more time playing than doing
academics. While I think there is a valuable lesson in teaching a seven-year-old to sit down and
focus on a task, that task shouldn’t be doing 1,400 multiplication tables.

Elementary school should be simply about reading, writing and arithmetic, about acquiring good work
habits, and perhaps most importantly, about instilling a love of learning in each child. A lot of

what in today’s school system is considered extracurricular, like putting out a
school paper, ought to be the curriculum. Students learn more that way than any other way.

New roles for schools

We are moving in a direction where everybody
is staring at a computer or a television all day and all night and not interacting with other people
in a meaningful way. I think the schools will have to be the counterbalance to this trend, to
actively provide opportunities for social interaction and to teach the skills required for
successful interaction with other individuals. Part of the job of the school must be to help
students learn how to work together and to be a functional part of society.

The school
itself will evolve into a sort of student or community centre, where kids are engaged in a variety
of activities and projects. There will be a tremendous range of activities, but they will not be as
purely academic as they currently are. When students are not participating in these activities, they
will be taking online courses at home, or if the supervision there doesn’t allow it, at
school.

Schools will become much more connected to the community around them as
activities bring students more and more into contact with their community. They will also become
more connected to local businesses, as students have the opportunity to engage in real-world jobs
with local employers. The school will become the centre of the community in a much deeper way than
it currently is.

Centralization of curriculum and instructional development and
academic tutoring

The advent of ubiquitous networking technology will lead to
the centralization of key functions in the education system, just as it has in the business world. I
see this happening in three key areas.

First, the delivery of education via online
courses will change the entire landscape of course development and control of the curriculum. Each
academic field will supply its experts to help create the courses in that field. Consortiums of
academic experts, educational technologists, and businesses will work to develop, update, refine and
improve these courses. As a society, we will be able to realize tremendous efficiencies by
developing these top-quality courses one time only. We will also realize a tremendous improvement in
course quality control. All students in the country will be able to select from a wide range of
top-quality courses in any subject that interests them.

Second, the fiction of local
control of education will become evident and a panel of education experts, rather than local groups
of well-meaning, but uninformed parents, will develop the curriculum. There will be no point of
local school boards arguing over which courses should or should not be offered, when every
imaginable expert-built course is available. A central body comprised of the country’s best
experts on education and learning, with representatives from the various academic fields, will
assume control over the curriculum represented by the online courses.

Third, the
advance of technology, in particular live videoconferencing, will lead to the creation of a
centralized pool of tutors for various subjects. Just as today’s companies have centralized
phone centres where customers can call in for service, we will see the creation of one-on-one
tutoring services provided via live videoconferencing. Having trouble with some calculus problems?
Just connect to the calculus tutoring centre for a face-to-face session with an expert tutor. These
learning service centres will provide students across the country, no matter what community they
live in, with access to the best coaches available.

How it will
happen

Universities and their partners are beginning to develop and increase
the amount of money being spent on online courses. Soon after they are made available at the
university level, these courses will find their way to high school. Why? The most in-demand courses
in universities today are freshman introductory courses: calculus, biology, physics, economics,
psychology, etc. So, from an economic standpoint, it makes sense that these high-enrolment courses
are likely to be the first online courses developed. These are the same courses that students are
taking as Advanced Placement (AP) courses in high school. This will be especially attractive to
those schools who cannot offer all the AP courses their students wish to take.

Eventually it will be possible to take an entire first year of college in high school and receive
college credit. Once this happens, the AP system as we know it will disappear. There will be no need
to have an arbitrary test determine whether or not students get credit for a course. They will take
the same course college freshmen are taking and get college credit directly. As I said, the
availability of online courses in high school is going to happen slowly, but it’s going to
happen. It’s easy to imagine that it may not be the case in two years, but it’s much
less easy to imagine that it won’t be the case in five years.

Conclusion

The primary driver of change in our 21st century education
system will be the creation of online courses that will remove the responsibilities for teaching
academic subjects from teachers. Instead, teachers and schools will focus on combating the
increasing social isolation that our society will face. Schools will become activity centres where
students will work in groups on real-world projects, go on trips, and participate in the community.
While students may also use schools as locations to engage in online course work, this course work
will be just as available at home. The advent of online courses and associated networking technology
will also lead to a centralization of course and curriculum development.

The Internet
economy has created the “first movers advantage” — the first to enter a new
marketplace often maintains an advantage over competitors. We must seize the opportunity to be the
“first movers” in creating a new approach to education.